Mother May I (Knight Games Book 4) (23 page)

“Just like that? You’re not going to fight me?”

The old woman laughed. “No, I’m not going to fight you. I’d help you if I could. Alas, if I stab myself with this thing, it will have no effect.”

“What are you talking about?” Was this a trick? Was my mother taking this form to lure me to my doom? Suspicious, I left three feet of space between us in case she lunged for me with the knife.

“You were always my favorite, Grateful,” she said with a sigh. “No matter what name you went by, or what life you were living, you always chose love. Again and again. Lifetime after lifetime. Whatever temptations fate sent your way, you’d find that man or he’d find you.”

“That man? You mean Rick, my caretaker?”

“Do you know how many caretakers there have been since the history of time?”

“No.”

“Seven. Do you know how many remain?”

I shook my head.

“Five. Two found ways to break the spell after only a few hundred years. Thousands of witches. Thousands of my progeny with the potential to share their immortality—to love and be loved in return, and only five have successfully done so. And of those five, only one has died multiple times defending me and mine, and always comes back to her caretaker, no matter the difficulty. No matter the risk.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I have been the goddess Hecate for millennia.” She raised her hand and gestured around the room. “Perhaps it is time I moved on. Who better than you to take my place?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to take your place. I never did. All I want is to live my life in your good graces, without an army of goblins trying to kill me.”

“You don’t still blame me for the goblins?” She laughed.

I bit my lip, remembering the two women I’d seen on the hill. Now that I was here, my mind finally processed the greater meaning of their presence. Hecate hadn’t sent the goblins to kill me. “It was Bathory,” I murmured.

“And Salome, the earth witch. The vampire Bathory convinced her that her ward wasn’t safe after you killed Tabetha. Salome hired the goblins to kill you. Of course, she might have come to her senses had Bathory not bound her with her blood.”

“No.” My mind reeled. “If it was them from the beginning, why did you mark me?” I looked down at my chest. The scar she’d put there was gone.

“When I saw the way you stood up to me… the fire you had in you… I thought to myself, this is the one Hecate, this is the one to free us from an eternity in this labyrinth. She will be faithful, wise, and stern when duty calls for it.”

“You bluffed to get me to unite the elements. You never intended to kill me,” I mumbled.

She nodded her head slowly and smiled. “If I truly wanted you dead, I’d mark your forehead, not your heart. What type of idiot would mark your heart? Put on a shirt, the mark disappears. Thwarted again.” She tossed up her hands and rolled her eyes. Grinning, she held out the blade to me. “The challenge is done. Get on with it.”

“No.” I took a step back.

“The time for choosing is over. The way back does not exist anymore, and the only way out is by killing me.”

“I don’t want to be a goddess. I just want my life back. What about Rick?”

Her hooded eyes widened. “What about Rick? Don’t you see the gift I am giving you? Accept my role and you can cure him of Tabetha’s mischief. He can be with you, here. He’s immortal. He can exist here permanently.”

“Here. In a stone labyrinth, cut off from our life? From the world?”

“It is the price a woman pays to become a goddess.”

“No.” I shook my head, starting to panic. I did not want to be a goddess. I certainly did not want to spend an eternity in a place like this. “No. I won’t do it. I do not accept.”

She tossed the knife gently in my direction. It clanked on the stone floor and skidded to a stop near my toes. She folded her fingers together and looked at me with the wisdom of a grandmother or a medicine woman, wisdom I could hardly fathom. “Then you will remain here, with me, for eternity.”

“That’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this.”

“Life isn’t fair, Grateful. No one promised either of us fair. The universe does not require fair, only balance. Before you resign yourself to spending forever with me here, see what you leave behind.” She stood and ambled toward the fire. With a wave of her hand, the flames danced and bent until an image of what was happening on earth came through on the vapors of heat.

I gasped as I saw Rick’s beast chained to the mud. The goblins had overcome him, and his scaly skin bubbled as if his change back to human form was close at hand. I saw Polina, Salome, and my body still clutched to each other in the circle. The power of the spell glowed a faint blue around us.

“The goblins are unable to penetrate the spell, but your earthly power is fading. You are still human, after all. In time, they will kill you, and Rick will be alone. Salome will recover but your friend Polina will suffer greatly at the hands of the goblins—if they don’t tear her apart and end her immortal existence first. Your familiar will die along with your human body, and your friend Logan…”

I turned my face from the fire to look at her.

“You don’t know what became of Logan, do you?” she asked wickedly. “He tried to run when the goblins came, but poor, weak human that he is, he simply wasn’t fast enough. They’ve captured him and hold him prisoner deep within the forest.”

My heart ached with the knowledge she was telling the truth. “Is he still alive?”

“For now. Goblins have a preference for human flesh. They will keep him alive until their victory celebration. Then they will have him as a main course.”

“No.” I covered my mouth with my hands.

“It’s your choice, Grateful. As the goddess, you could set all of this right. If you took the power from me, you could use it for the greater good. Who would be a more just and fair queen of the dead than you? You were born to do this. No one can do it but you.” Half of the crone’s crooked smile glowed in the firelight, the other half buried in shadow.

When I thought of my life’s purpose, I always thought about my job as a nurse. For me, being there when a patient was at their sickest and caring for them when nobody else could was my purpose. I’d brought people back from the brink of death. That was my purpose. Not this. This was blackmail. I’d been tricked and manipulated.

I looked back at the fire and thought about Rick, suddenly aware again that I was naked. Would I have to spend eternity without pants? Maybe I deserved this. All my friends had helped me get here, and I had failed them.

“Why didn’t you mention Julius?” I asked suddenly. “You showed me the fate of everyone but him.”

The old woman shrugged and brought her fingers to her jaw. She turned from me, taking interest in the fire.

“What are you keeping from me? Julius’s blood still courses through my veins and mine through his. He wouldn’t just leave until I was dead.” Could I even die? Or would I become some vampire/witch hybrid? He’d told me I couldn’t become a vampire, but I could draw on his power. I shared all his abilities, so why did Hecate not want to discuss Julius or our bond?

With her back still to me, I picked up the obsidian blade. “It’s time to end this,” I said.

“That’s right. Straight to the heart, dear.” She pivoted and pulled her dress aside to expose the wrinkled skin over her chest.

The heart. Strange that to kill a goddess required the heart, which I considered the most human of anatomy. But then, she looked human in the light of the fire.

“Close your eyes. I can’t do this with you staring at me,” I said.

She gave a curt nod and did as I requested. I approached and pressed the tip of the blade into her chest. A tiny drop of her blood pooled against the tip.

“It must be hard to be a goddess. Lonely. Isolating. I can understand why you did what you did, luring me here.”

She nodded her head and blinked slowly.

“You manipulated me, Mother, but I forgive you for it. I forgive you for everything.”

A ghost of a smile flitted across her face.

“So, I hope you can forgive me for this.” I sliced the blade against my forearm, quickly and silently, then pressed my blood to her lips. I wrapped my opposite arm around her head and pressed my wound into her mouth until I was sure she had swallowed some of my blood. Then I pushed her away.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, sounding younger than the old crone.

“I’m killing you.” I brought the blade down, plunging it into her heart. I knew I’d hit my mark because the dagger jerked in my hand with each failing beat.

The crone toppled to the floor, the blade withdrawing from her falling body. I tossed the dagger aside and rolled her onto her back. I watched the light drain from her eyes as her blood pooled near my feet.

And that’s when things got weird.

Chapter 30

Opa!

P
ure unadulterated power forced my naked body into the center of the room. Once there, I burst into purple flame as if I was an elaborate dish a waiter had doused in brandy and ignited. As hot as the fire blazed, I did not burn. Instead, I expanded in the heat, growing until five rays of light shot out from my body. Each projection represented an element: blue for water, brown for earth, silver for metal, white for air, and green for wood. My purple fire burned down those rays of light and formed a circle around me. I became the cog in a mystical wheel, the five elements revolving around me, feeding me their power. I absorbed it all.

I lifted my hand in front of my face and watched it transform from the smooth skin of a young girl, to the muscular grip of a woman in her prime, to the spotted hand of an elderly crone. They were all different, yet all me. Time had folded in on itself. I’d become the goddess Hecate.

Soon, the room was too small for me. At my will, the walls of the labyrinth fell away, and I stood among the stars, the universe revolving around my hips. The heavens were still a mystery above me, but hell was peculiarly accessible. Tortured souls called to me from below my feet. I had too much going on to acknowledge their pleas. Unimaginable power poured into me, and my mind and my soul grappled with how to contain it, how to control it. The power consumed and confounded me. Past, present, and future converged. Was it today? Yesterday? A million years from now?

Becoming a goddess cannot be explained in human language. There are no words for the sensation of one’s atoms exploding like supernovas or the intimate oneness that occurs with the life force of a single cell. The experience was overwhelming. So much so that I almost forgot what I’d planned to do with my new power. I’d become
this
for a reason.

The memory came to me on a warm breeze through the universe.

Love.

It would be romantic to say it was Rick who tethered me to reality. Our love was a strong and beautiful thing, certainly worth a stop on the road to immortality. But he was not the only checkpoint in my spiritual expansion. My sisterhood with Polina, the witch who had helped me get here at great personal sacrifice, also anchored me to the world, as did my friendship with Logan. Even Julius, whose bond had saved my life, and Poe, whose love mimicked a kick in the pants more frequently than a hug, crossed my mind, as did Michelle and my father.

I was loved, and I loved others.

In a state of infinite possibilities, it came down to this. All that mattered was love. Expanding further, moving beyond the plane I was in, took me farther away from love. And so, as painful as it was to do so, I stopped becoming the goddess and turned away from the increasing power.

I had promises to keep.

With everything I had, I concentrated on returning to the ones I loved. To do so, I had to contract and stretch the tethers that bound me to the wheel in the labyrinth. I was relieved when the magic obeyed. I arrived in the forest outside the goblin battle. Not exactly where I’d expected to be. I’d focused on Rick, but defiantly my magic brought me here.

Ahhh!
Logan’s screams drew my attention and I walked to a clearing nearby. He was bound to an oak tree, two platinum-headed goblins poking him with daggers and drinking his blood.

“Leave him!” I said, but the words came out jumbled, like I was speaking in a different language.

The silver heads turned to face me. “Who are you?” the female asked, drawing her bow and pointing a silver arrow in my direction. I recognized her, although her existence seemed insignificant now.

The male she was with pointed his dagger at me. He couldn’t operate a bow because he was missing a hand.

“Tobias,” I said and took a step toward him.

The female wrinkled her nose and released the arrow. It hit me squarely in the stomach. I laughed at the faint tickle of silver before my power melted and absorbed it.

With a deep breath, I sent a gust of wind in their direction, careful to avoid Logan. The goblins shrieked and blew apart piece by piece, raining silver chunks at Logan’s feet.

Logan’s heart fluttered in panic. I could hear it like the beat of hummingbird wings inside his chest. He kicked and pressed himself against the tree to escape me.

“Relax,” I said softly, although it was clear he didn’t understand me. I waved a hand and the branch of the tree reached down and broke the silver chains binding him.

He shielded his eyes and looked in my direction. “Grateful? Is that you?”

“Yes,” I said, but he shook his head. He didn’t understand me.

Poe and Hildegard landed in a branch of the tree. “Thank you, my queen,” Poe said reverently.

I bowed my head slightly in acknowledgment as a cry of pain rang out from the hillside. With one look back at Logan and Poe, I changed course. With some effort, I concentrated on Rick and transported myself to his side. On the edge of the battlefield, he’d succumbed to his human form again and was naked and shivering under a crisscross of goblin chains that sizzled against his flesh. Julius, pale and bleeding, frantically fought the goblins, his efforts to protect my lifeless body increasingly less effective. The goblins were winning. Time to turn the tables.

Stretching my arms to my sides, I focused all my anger on the goblin army. I didn’t simply draw on one element, but all of them. I released a blast of energy embodying all my hatred for their kind.